October 17, 2010

How difficult — liberating? — it must feel for Germans to admit that they feel this way. Merkel is attempting to moderate: "We should not be a country either which gives the impression to the outside world that those who don't speak German immediately or who were not raised speaking German are not welcome here."

She wants muslims to be more proficient in German? So that what? So that they can even more effectively establish themselves as the local power in Dusseldorf or Dresden or Mannheim where the sound of the muslim call to prayer will be inescapable and Sharia will be the law and sections of the city will become no go zones? One thing Merkel will never do is call for expulsion. Not even after Germany has its own Malmo or Rotterdam or Dearborn, Michigan! Because it's unthinkable. Respectable people would rather commit suicide than do something so, so...unenlightened.

Also correct is that isolating people into ethnic enclaves, ethnic groups, and regligious separatism is divisive.

Isolation and separatism.

Also in Merkel's statement the operative word is IMMEDIATELY. If you can't immediately speak the language or fit into the culture of your adoptive/host country it doesn't make you unwelcome.

What makes you undersireable and unwelcome is the refusal to learn the language, fit in, become a part of the country that you are moving into. OR in the case of the waves of illegal hispanics......invading in order to take advantage of the economy and of the welfare system.

In other words......they, the Islams in Germany and the illegals in the US are parasites on the host country.

Learning the language, especially for the younger adults and children, causes several things.

First of all it removes some of the isolation. It allows a smoother transition into the culture.

Second, when you learn another language you are forced to learn a different way of thinking, constructing sentances: verbs, nouns, adjectives all have different places. Even different meanings. For example in Spanish, nouns have gender. Female nouns and male nouns.

Germany isn't as bad as France where, if the "youths" burn less than 100 cars, it's a quiet night. Those Moslems (or Hindus or Mexicans) not interested in fitting in are going to create a lot of problems in any society, particularly where they're cordoned off.

I have yet to hear of any problems with Hindus in this country and I think there are a lot of Moslems here whose reason for coming was possibly to get out from under regimes that were too repressive for them - in whatever way you choose.

The problem we have here is not Moslems, but those Mexicans who want to come for the free ride (granted, plenty come to work hard and do), but have no interest in becoming Americans, they simply want to turn where they are into Mexico. The only reason this exists, of course, is that the Demos think this will give them RahmBO's wet dream of a Permanent Democrat Majority.

At least she's not complaining about the Jews. Oh, that's right, there aren't really any Jews left in Germany. See, this is what happens when you exterminate a people who very happily assimilated into your society and paid their own way and didn't look to the state for welfare. You end up with the opposite. Germany, still reaping what it sowed all those years ago. Hard to feel that much sympathy.

I have no problems with multiculturalism... yet. most of our illegals here in the Philippines are Chinese. They work hard, they're smart, they give us cheap goods--and most importantly, they're not crazy.

And your position is really no better than "I have no sympathy for the ancestors of those who enslaved blacks".

Fen, it's not about the slaves. And it is about the Jews and it is about WW II. It's cause and effect. Why do you think Germany allowed such massive importation of Turks and other immigrants into Germany after WW II? Because it was feeling generous? It needed the workers. Except it didn't get that. It's gotten the opposite.

"Learning the language, especially for the younger adults and children, causes several things."

learning the language is important, but the 2nd and 3rd generation pakistani brits are fluent in english. OTOH, younger gens don't embrace the british culture and are not as happy to be in UK as their parents were.

You both get it and refuse to get it, DBQ. They, muslims, don't want to fit in. The essence of Islam, repeated ad nauseum in the Koran, is intolerance. The other, the non-muslim, is TO BE CONVERTED OR KILLED. Compromise? As a muslim you compromise with the infidel until you get the upper hand. After that life is hell for the infidel. Impossible for most decent westerners to get their minds around how utterly incompatible Islam is with the West (ditto AllenS). Their kids will learn German? Surface stuff compared to the indoctrination from birth.

I lived in Germany for about three years in the Nineties (mostly in Idar-Oberstein). The locals referred to all the Muslim immigrants generically as "Turks" because a bunch of the original ones had come from Turkey. They were not really considered a part of the community, except as a sort of low-level criminal class. I was constantly warned about pickpockets/muggers/bands of Turkish yoots, etc. by well meaning Germans. Between the Roma/Gypsies (who have large migrant populations in and around Germany) and the "Turks", I'm not sure who was more marginalized.

I was uncomfortable with the sort of de facto second class citizen status of non-Germans, but I can understand some of the resentments the locals had.

Cultures don't assimilate anywhere near as well as all you Vanilla Ices assume - especially in freer countries. Check out New England, for instance. They're still just as uptight and proper as they were in their Puritan days.

Yes, Multi-Culti is a failure. HOWEVER, much of the problem, in Germany, is this...

In the US my parents come to America, legally, illegally, doesn't matter. They have kids, and their children have kids..what are the grand children, AMERICANS!

In Germany, at least it WAS, this way..Your parents come from Turkey, they have kids, and the kids have children, what ate the grand-children...TURKS. NO German citizenship attached.

You can't assimilate IF the host nation won't let you...Merkel is complaining that in Germany, Turks, living at the bottom of the social/political/economic structure, kept there by GERMAN LAW, are not assimilating into Germany.

Well D'UH!!!!!!!

Now those third generation Turks might not WANT to assimilate, and that's a granted too...and to that extent Merkel is RIGHT. But as long as German Law is structured to keep immigrants as low-wage labour, and second-class ctizens there's not going to be a lot of assimilation.

It's a two-way street, I have to want to be German, but Germany has to WANT ME TOO. Right now, for many, the two-way street is closed at both ends.

And there were 600,000 German Jews, 1939...the Germans imported GastArbeiters not because they killed off the Jews, who were NOT manual labour. Lawler might want to take a German History class or too, him/herself.

Dude, A.J. - I said it as a response to Ed. Not as an initial, out-of-the-blue insult. Same with Palin. No one accused her of anything before she started that shit.

I hate to bring up the "he started it" talk, but come on. You gonna let Edutcher accuse fellow Philadelphians of living in gated communities and a preference for life in Soviet Russia? Fuck that shit, dog! Have some pride and don't take that crap from his mouth!

Where's your pride, man? Palin, too? I mean, Alaska over Philly? The United States was born here. I don't need to listen to any ignorant motherfuckers talking to me about not knowing and living what America is all about. And neither should you.

"Cultural assimilation, the process whereby a minority group gradually adapts to the customs and attitudes of the prevailing culture and customs. "

This. It doesn't mean giving up your own cultural customs, history or religion.

Assimilation is adapting to and absorbing the ideas, cultural norms and blending them into your own culture.

The theory of linguistic realitivity has changed from the early Saphir-Worph hypothesis which strongly stated that language influened how you think to a more relaxed hypothesis.

Whether you buy into the strong or weak theory of linguistic relativity, the reality is that when a large portion of an immigrant population REFUSES to learn the language of the host country and REFUSES to acknowledge the laws and rules and culture of the host country, there can be no communication, no assimilation, no unity and there WILL be division.

When you divide people into groups, you create the ability to demonize 'the other' and to create unrest and discrimination.

Stirring the pot doesn't always lead to division. Sometimes it's necessary to breathe new life into a stale and brittle mode of existence.

But either way, I think I'm going to go easy on my role as resident thorn in the side of the Althouse blog for the rest of the afternoon. Plus, it's a Sunday. I made my points, and my powder's dry. Vanilla Ice sucked and Philadelphia rocks.

Clothing styles from different cultures also can be assimilated. The Muslims with their hijab and the Hassidic Jews with their distinctive garb are both instances of minority cultures who refuse to assimilate and thus single themselves out as separate. The "OTHER". When you have 'the other' as designated by the majority, it can cause bad things to occur in society. Witness WWII and the Jews as 'the other' who can be scapegoated.

These things happen in a deeply divided, ghetto-ized society.

Learning the language of the host country is just one of the steps. Probably the MOST important first step to assimilation.

Merkel is absolutely right on. We need to do the same in this country and insist that English be the official language for schools, government transactions etc

Lawler: Fen, it's not about the slaves. And it is about the Jews and it is about WW II. It's cause and effect. Why do you think Germany allowed such massive importation of Turks and other immigrants into Germany after WW II? Because it was feeling generous? It needed the workers. Except it didn't get that. It's gotten the opposite.

That would be lovely analysis, except that it applies to all of Europe in that era, not just Germany. So try again...

Typical American. History is just so 5 minutes ago.

No. I got it right, you just got your "cause and effect" wrong.

If Ritmo was here, he'd stumble through something latnish like post hoc ergo propter hoc that he stole from that day's West Wing espisode.

But little did Dust Borg Queen know that ghettos sprang up so that Christian Europe could segregate the non-Christians from their midst, and keep them out of sight. So, perhaps a defense of thought control was what she had in mind all along.

Why do you think Germany allowed such massive importation of Turks and other immigrants into Germany after WW II? Because it was feeling generous? It needed the workers. Except it didn't get that. It's gotten the opposite.

That would be lovely analysis, except that it applies to all of Europe in that era, not just Germany.

Which other European country had so many SE European "guest workers" after WW II? Only the home of der Wirtschaftwunder that I knew of.

Which reminds me: beginning in the early 80s if not before, Austria required one to buy a sticker to help finance the Innsbruck to Vienna autobahn. Curious, I was told that most of the people using that autobahn paid no taxes for its upkeep, being Turks and South Slavs driving between where their jobs were and where their families lived. Resenting these literal free riders, the Austrians had settled on this sticker sales idea to make the users pay.

Merkel's speech comes on the heels of France confronting it's Roma/Gypsy problem that is coming into France from Eastern Europe..(where the Roma/Gypsy is not popular either).

Sarkozy wants the defiantly unassimilated and high crime Gypsies gone. And is deporting them as a detriment to the French state. Who don't contribute and are unwanted in France.

So it isn't just Islamoids.

And in that, there is no word of freeing W Europe of assimilated Chinese, Vietnamese, christian E Europeans who for the most part blend in and fit in and want to fit in.

In Asia, the issue of "not fitting in" has usually fallen on Chinese immigrants. There is some assimilation, but the Chinese are notorious for clannishness, becoming an economic elite that look on natives as less gifted than the Chinese themselves, and dual loyalties. This has led to historical "purges" - be they real or laws forcing ethnic Chinese to give up dominance of industries and hire natives and accept a de facto "quota system" in the professions and school slots.

So cultural assimilation means living as you would have anyways? Americans assimilate in Europe by eating exclusively at McDonald's and Pizza Hut, ordering cans of pumpkin pulp by mail from the US, and washing down every meal with Coca Cola -- that kind of assimilation?

Severe reading comprehension issues evidently. It is like trying to reason with a 3 year old.

/ignore

"The prevailing culture celebrates Christmas for 12 days -- the minority group does what?"

The same thing that the majority culture does when the minority group celebrates Rhamadan, Rosh Hanna, Halloween. Either ignore it. Or more likely be somewhat interested and learn about the other's customs.

"The prevailing culture closes their businesses on Sunday -- the minority group does what?"

Conduct business as usual? Or take a day off.

"The prevailing culture eats pork at least once a day -- the minority group does what?"

Not eat pork. Eat something else. Ignore the pork eaters. What harm is it to the minority group if I want to eat a pork chop instead of fish on Friday?

"The males of the prevailing culture take their families to the beer garden on Sundays for a relaxing afternoon -- the minority group does what?"

Um....doesn't go to the beer garden. Hangs out with their families in the way that THEY like.

Hitler's regime lasted twelve years. People read all kinds of dark and immutable things into the German national character because of it. I would like to think that it was a one off, that a strange combination of fate and circumstances produced Hitler, and that he was not the true representation of the German soul....As a historical note, at the time of WWI, Americans were as distrustful of the Jews here as they were of German-Americans. It was the feeling that Jews hated the Czar and favored the more tolerant rule of Germany in Eastern Europe.....Hitler was, indeed, a monster, but he was the only one that Germany produced. Marxism turned out Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Milosevic, Kim Jung and an endless list of psychopaths. It's funny how leftists stereotype Germans and exculpate Marxists.

The common thread through all those examples is the obsession with order, William, which is the conservative predisposition without which communism would have lacked national support.

You act as if these movements went over the heads of the right wing in each country. I don't buy it for a second. Reciting the names of Mao and Milosevic as if their nationalist credentials, support from their countries' military establishments and other rightist constituencies were historical footnotes is a bunch of bunk.

And then we have the Nazis. Very orderly lot, them. Very industrial, very focused, very nationalist and very much remembered for the scale to which they first took this business.

Hitler didn't kill six million Jews (and numerous others including Gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents and the handicapped) by himself. While not all Germans were Nazis, all Nazis WERE Germans. Hitler and the Nazis couldn't have created antisemitism out of thin air; it was already deeply ingrained in German society, as well as in those of certain neighboring countries that willingly cooperated in the destruction of their own Jewish populations.

Lawler Walken: I do remember having a "karma" feeling when, 20 or 30 years ago, Germans started complaining about all the Turks they had invited as "guest workers." (And that was long before the current extremist troubles.) Here they went to so much trouble to get rid of the Jews, who (in Germany itself) were thoroughly assimilated, WWI soldiers, German patriots, admirers of and contributors to German culture, and for that matter even (after centuries in Europe) kind of white, and what do they end up with? Turks, who are that much more alien . . . talk about the return of the repressed.

I have to agree with Dust Bunny Queen about "these parasites on the host country". They need to be dealt with accordingly. Does anyone have a big can of "Raid"? LOL!

"Mississippi Truck Driving Man" is the "Moby" alter-ego of someone who used to post under the name "phil". He/She is deliberately posting racially inflammatory comments to egg on a couple dunderheads to post other racially inflammatory comments and then he/she will (probably) run off to some blog-comment swamp or other and squeak about all the racists that the Althouse blog attracts.

How do I know it's the same person? Because "phil" was too stupid to set up a different profile for his "Moby" sock-puppet; the "phil" comments link to the same profile as the "Mississippi Truck Driving Man" comments.

Now, this doesn't excuse the actual stupid drooling yahoos who commented in agreement with "Mississippi Truck Driving Man's" racist "chum", not knowing they were being played. But since Althouse is very liberal about allowing free speech in her comments, up to and including racially offensive speech, I thought it necessary to point out that someone was playing dirty tricks by taking advantage of this.

Someone help me out here, maybe one of the resident liberal geniuses here can explain it.

Four Freedoms of the European Union, going back to Common Market days: Free movement across borders of goods, services, capital, and people (was workers). But the bulk of the Turks (non-EU) have been in Germany since the guest worker days.

FLS, there is NO "Free Movement" of labour, within, the EU, even now, IIRC.

The Common Market/Eu was about a "Market", buying and selling goods, not an economic union, and the EU isn't a full union, now.

Immigrants have a "right" to EU nations based on their Constitutions/Basic Laws/Laws/ the EU Rulings/ECHR rulings....Sweden has bvery liberal immigrant laws as does Germany. Because when they were passed it was a symbol of their openness and liberality and there weren't that many immigrants. Now timesa re tougher and there are a LOT more immigrants.

Palladian, you're absolutely right, except that (as far as I can tell) the only commenter who agreed with "Mississippi Truck Driving Man" was "Bartender Cabbie"… so obviously just another moby.

And note, of course, the vile classism & bigotry of the liberal(s) who crafted these characters-- the utter contempt displayed for blue collar citizens (named after their jobs-- like "Joe the Plumber") in painting them as ugly racists.

Hitler didn't kill six million Jews (and numerous others including Gypsies, homosexuals, political opponents and the handicapped) by himself. While not all Germans were Nazis, all Nazis WERE Germans. Hitler and the Nazis couldn't have created antisemitism out of thin air; it was already deeply ingrained in German society, as well as in those of certain neighboring countries that willingly cooperated in the destruction of their own Jewish populations.

========================That's a rather stupid reading of history.

1. While the onus is properly on the National Socialists of Germany about the killing of 22 million Soviets, 5 million East European Christians, and 6 million Jews (only the Jews get the marquee victim spot) - a good number of those - Jews, Soviets, European Christians - were killed directly in war as combatants and collateral damage. They were killed not by Nazis so much as by the Soviet determination to trade soldiers and civilian lives by "scorched earth", throwing unarmed civilians against machine guns and tanks. There was also a pretty reliable "thumbrule stat" that 1/4th of the civilian deaths of Poles, Greeks, Yugoslavians, Jews, and Soviets was due to famine and disease (notably typhus).

2. "While not all Germans were Nazis, all Nazis WERE Germans." Flat-out ignorance. The Nazis had many allies, with national socialist military divisions and brigades fighting alongside them on the Eastern Front from Spain, Turkey, Italy, France, Lithuania, Austria, Hungary, Romania, Poland after the Katyn massacre, and Arabs.

3. Anti-Semitism has existed in any nation where Jews have risen to disproportionate power and influence. Some guy analyzing Jewish relations with other nations has noted that the pattern has been since the time of the Ptolemies that the welcome mat is rolled out for Jews to come in, at a certain point the natives determine Jews are more trouble than they are worth, then the welcome mat is rolled up.Remember that the Germans 1st simply wanted the Jews to move out of Europe. At the time, the British and French colonial Empires didn't want them. Even too many in Palestine, as the money that won the Balfour Declaration only went so far..by 1922 the Brits had a major headache between native Arabs and incoming Jews. Of course, N America didn't want piles of Jews in the jobless Depression, coming in. And the Soviets devised a colony for Jews, but set it up so that Jews could not just have all the professional and business and government jobs while a lesser people toiled in the fields, forests, mines, and in construction - but themselves had to do the hard physical labor, 90% of the jobs, in order to make the "Jewish Oblast" work. And of course, under communism, not capitalism and free trade. Few took the Soviets up on their Jewish Homeland.

Belkys raises a good point: the bbc report substantially differs from all of the German language reports of what Angela Merkel said.

Mrs Merkel told a gathering of younger members of her conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU) party on Saturday that at "the beginning of the 60s our country called the foreign workers to come to Germany and now they live in our country."

She added: "We kidded ourselves a while, we said: 'They won't stay, sometime they will be gone', but this isn't reality."

"And of course, the approach [to build] a multicultural [society] and to live side-by-side and to enjoy each other... has failed, utterly failed."

What the German language press quoted instead:

In the past, too little had been required. But it was a legitimate demand that immigrants learn the German language in order to make progress at school and to have a chance in the job market.

Further, forced marriages are not acceptable, and naturally girls from Muslim families should be able to go on school trips.

Immigration is also a reality that must be dealt with. Germany had changed greatly since 1945: "Denying reality was never a good response to the changes that lie ahead," warned Merkel. The chancellor also stood behind President Wulff's controversial assertion that Islam was a part of Germany.

Germans are simply realizing that as a matter of policy issue, the US has been right all along. We as Americans detest multiculti on all fronts which includes political correctness, that perfidious calamity to rearrange the entire english lexicon into the halls of utter blandness, and neutrality of all things.

C4 is right that the US did very little to take in Germany's Jews. (The US did take 100K in during the 30s. A total of some 300K German and Austrian Jews escaped the Third Reich before the Holocaust began.)

Read the fate of the S.S. St. Louis. The US Holocaust Museum has a page on the failure of the Evian Conference to find refuge for a single Jew. The US did not even rescue innocent children.

JULY 6-15, 1938REFUGEE CONFERENCE IN EVIANDelegates from 32 countries and representatives from relief organizations meet in Evian-les-Bains, a spa town in France, to discuss the German-Jewish refugees. The United States encourages all countries to find a long-term solution to the problem. However, the United States and other countries are unwilling to ease their immigration restrictions. Most countries fear that an increase of refugees will cause further economic hardships. The conference ends a week later. With the exception of the tiny Dominican Republic, no country is willing to accept more refugees. One result of the conference is the establishment of the Intergovernmental Committee on Refugees (ICR), which will continue to work on the refugee problem.

FEBRUARY 9, 1939 LIMITED REFUGEE BILL PROPOSED IN U.S. CONGRESSThe Wagner-Rogers refugee aid bill is introduced in the United States Senate by Senator Robert F. Wagner (D-New York). This bill calls for the admission to the United States of 20,000 German refugee children under the age of 14 over the next two years, in addition to immigration normally permitted. The bill will be introduced in the House of Representatives by Representative Edith Nourse Rogers (R-Massachusetts) five days later. Charity organizations across the country publicize the plight of German refugee children in an attempt to gain support for the bill. However, organizations favoring restrictive immigration strongly oppose the bill and claim that the refugee children would deprive American children of aid. After several months of debate, the bill is defeated in committee. The bill would have provided refuge for thousands of German Jewish children.

C-4 is seeing the Jews existence as an offense. What a stupid thing to think. The Jewish people everywhere have been so successful that they accumulate significant wealth and its influence until a genius like C-4 has a brilliant thought that the Jews must be killed or be penalized by sudden deportation...BUT always leaving their wealth behind them as loot to be owned by C-4 and his new nationalist movement. That attitude towards any people is only the instinct for theft dressed up as a political movement (See, the movie Die Hard and its thieves appropriately speaking German).

Jews have wandered the world. In some parts of the world such as China, India, and Africa, anti-Semitism was unknown. In such places, the Jews integrated with the local population and eventually disappeared. Among the people of the Book, as the Muslims say, there has always been a certain amount of resentment towards the Jews. They after all owned the copyright on the Bible, and their faith seemingly took precedence. Among Confucians, Hindus, and animists such latent antagonism did not exist. Here in secular America, anti-semitism is a dying bigotry, and will perhaps go the way of anti-Catholic prejudice.....I read somewhere that 40% of Jews in America marry outside their faith. It's a nice point: who will disappear first: the Jews or the anti-semites. At any rate all Jews, should say a prayer for Cedarford. His bigotry is what bonds them to their faith.

"traditionalguy said... C-4 is seeing the Jews existence as an offense. What a stupid thing to think."

Go jack off to your Goddess Sarah, tradguy.You are incredibly ignorant about history. You do not have a clue about what all nations in the midst of a Depression said about the likelihood they would let their citizens suffer to allow mass immigration in. Do do not have a clue about the Soviet Autonomous Oblast that Jews rejected. You probably never even heard of it. Nor of the massive problem the British Empire had situating Jews in Palestine or anywhere else after Jews bought up land and evicted Arab tenant farmers (1920-21).You don't have a clue of the difficulty Jews have had fitting in and assimilating since the time of the post-Alexander Ptolemies. As I said, the natives believe that Jews bring valuable skills so the welcome mat is rolled out, then over time, natives begin thinking there are more negatives to the Jews than positives, the welcome mat is then rolled up.

At least Jacking off to your Goddess Palin is harmless. Maybe stick with that rather than instrude into an adult discussion with your comic book level knowledge of history.

Here's another morsel for thought. Every right-winger that is talking about evicting a subversive, unwelcome Muslim presence from Europe - is having the identical conversation that happened in much of W Europe and the rest of the world about the Jews and the millions killed by Bolshevikism, the Red Terrorists - in the 1930s. The fact that so many are talking about the need to get an alien presence out of Europe and there are so many similarities between anti-Islamist feelings and anti-Jewish feelings speaks to human nature remaining the same. And that in both eras, the discussions were not pure, blind prejudice, but natives acting in their own perceived self-interest against outsiders.

Thought I'd repost a Ritmo comment from one earlier this week, displaying what he's up to at Althouse, and why he comments here:

"Ritmo Brasileiro said...It's good to know that the stupidest threads are just ripe for the threadjacking. I'll be sure to leave a trail of turds on every one of the brain droppings here that suit my fancy. Getting you shit-eaters to complain about the taste after opening your mouths wide and saying "Ahhhh..." to every bad idea under the sun is very satisfying, I must admit.10/16/10 10:28 AM"

C-4 ...You did say the Goddess Sarah, right? The GOP says that the Goddess Christine doesn't allow jacking off to her yet, but then she is only a Goddess in training. What if those hateful Jew lovers can select a Jewish Woman who will run as a tea party candidate with Palin, maybe even one named Esther? Then will your hostility toward Jews stop? As of now we Tea Party guys cannot let you join our Party because you really get angry to easy.

I have to say, for the record, that as far as I'm concerned-- for me personally-- C4 has now crossed a certain line as a commenter. There is so much that is terribly, profoundly, disgustingly wrong in what he's saying here… but I have neither the energy nor the desire to get into it. Especially not with him.

Because on other topics he is often cogent & interesting (even when I disagree), I am genuinely surprised-- I didn't know it was this bad-- for the first time I glimpse the real depths of his anti-semitism. It's nauseating. It makes me sad.

As for RB, yes he's being obnoxious, displaying one of his worst faults as a commenter-- neglecting (or refusing) to make fundamental ethical distinctions among those he disagrees with. Here, tarring someone like DBQ (whose comments here couldn't be farther from his interpretation of them) & C4 with the same brush. That's pretty damn low.

Thanks, Pogo for the reminder. Some years ago there was a commenter who was no different than Ritmo, who bragged that: "someone has to be the turd in the punchbowl." Can't remember the name, but I wouldn't be surprised that it's the same person.

Here, tarring someone like DBQ (whose comments here couldn't be farther from his interpretation of them) & C4 with the same brush. That's pretty damn low.

Thank you.

I was factually stating cultural anthropology theories and observations about assimilation and the effects on the cultures of the minority and majority groups.

Also referencing linguistic anthropology and the theory that your ideas and ways of thinking may be influenced by your language and the importance of having the minority immigrant population learn the language of the host country. (Both topics/courses I studied in college for my major)

The fundamental problem with multiculturalism is that it doesnt' allow for assimilation, and without assimilation the various ethnic groups never become part of the system. A country needs it's borders, it's language it's identity. All multiculturalism does is take foreigners, and put them in their own foreign zone separate from others. Not to be too chauvanisitic about this, but they need to learn our language, adopt our customs and give up some of their identity. The melting pot is the way it's supposed to work, not separating all the ingredients into their own separate piles.It's the same with open borders. We cannot survive with completley open borders.Melting pot, not multiculturalism.

Cedarford, while it's true that many cultures have had antisemitism at it's core and that Jews have worn out their welcome all over the world, do you think it's possible that some of that ill will may have been due to irrational hatred of those hating the Jews, and not the Jews being so troublesome a people that everyone just can't stand them.You can go back to shakespeare or the Canterbury Tales and find wildly inflammatory depictions of jews as blood suckers and you'll find that much of Europe for centuries before the nazis, as well as the Islamic world has despised the Jews. And that most of said animus reflects more on those cultures than on the Jews.What you're saying is the equivalent of saying no wonder we had black slavery, those uppity negroes were just so inferior and brought it upon themselves.

Why am I not surprised that Pogo would step in with another one of his conspiracy theories?

Nice try, Pogo. Many people do things for more than one reason. I know this is difficult for you to understand, but a better physician than you would have a handle on multi-causation.

As for Borg, she elides German responsibility for their genocidal "response" to Jewish dress by first placing emphasis on their differences as some sort of conscious thorn in the German/(Nazi) eye. That's a ridiculous way to approach this, but something an obsessive reactionary who sees insult to her arbitrary idea of order might be expected to see things.

If not, then she can always try to explain herself in a less clumsy way. I'm sure many of us anxiously await the great insight behind what Hasidic dress has to do with the impulse to commit genocide.

Of Germans and homophobes: The most devout anti-semites in the Nazi entourage were ethnic Germans from the Baltic and eastern European countries. The ethnic Germans in those countries shared similar characteristics with the Jews. They were better educated and more successful than the native populations. Perhaps their anti-semitism was a way of deflecting the hostility that they felt aimed their way in those countries. The marginal have the greatest need to marginalize others.....The recent cases of homophobia in the Bronx and at Rutgers were perpertrated by Asians and Hispanics. Perhaps, it was not a coincidence that they were, themselves, minorities.